Still Life With Boxes

I had such big plans. I was going to blog every day. There was nothing to stop me.

Except the boxes. Tons and tons of boxes.

If I'd blogged earlier in the week, like I'd planned, my post title was going to be "Moving Mayhem." But that probably would have been too easy.

Goodness knows moving isn't easy.

72 Hours
If you count packing and unpacking, moving takes several months. However, Hubby figured out our actual physical move took about 72 hours.

My mom came up last Thursday night with my niece Bre and my nephew CJ. Friday morning at 11 mom and Hubby went to get the moving truck. We got the 26 foot truck, which is apparently the largest one you can drive with a private liscense.

Everyone we had lined up to help us suddenly flaked, which meant we were totally up a creek, but then our handy-man randomly called. He was able to find a helper for us. phew! Frantic loading of the truck commenced since the helper was only available until 3 pm so all the heavy furniture had to be done before then. The kids very much enjoyed using the handtrucks to ferry boxes out to the truck.

While the helper was at the house we had the dogs locked in the bathroom. They weren't very happy about that at all. After he left we let them out. Samson spent the rest of the day supervising our activities. Baru spent the rest of the day cowering in the bottom of Hubby's closet since we'd dismantled the Puppy Fort (aka our bed).

Loading continued until around 8 pm. We wisely left out the full size mattresses for us and mom to sleep on Friday night. Baru wasn't very happy about his Fort being gone. On the other hand the mattress was on the floor so I was able to just reach out and put my hand on him for snuggles.

Saturday morning we got up and finished loading the truck. That took longer than expected, just as the loading Friday did. Then we saw with horror that all our stuff wouldn't fit in the truck. Resigned to the fact that we'd have to come back for a second load we tossed the dogs in the SUV and began the four hour drive to our new home.

On this end Hubby's brother Doug came over from NY to help. Phew! We unloaded late into the night taking one little break to take everyone out to dinner to thank them for their labor. If you've ever moved you know that unloading goes faster because you don't have to carefully position things. You just yank them off the truck and put them in the assigned room.

Samson again supervised the process and Baru went and hid in the one closet in the bedroom. Oh, did I say the bedroom? I meant the one closet in the entire apartment.

Still, we didn't finish before everyone was falling down from exhaustion. Mom ended up choosing a random dorm room since no students have checked in. The neice and nephew slept on the couches. Doug slept on one of the full size mattresses in the dining room. Hubby and I slept on our own mattress on the floor. I swear to you that at bedtime Samson was scratching around next to the bed trying to figure out how to get into the Puppy Fort. I was like, "Samson, we haven't built it yet," and he flopped down and grunted at me in disgust.

Sunday morning we got up, finished unloading, swept the truck, and Hubby exchanged it for the second, smaller one. Then we took everyone out to breakfast. CJ got to ride on the back of Doug's motorcycle, which he said was very exciting. Then we headed out for the four hour drive back to the house.

phew!

Mom and the kids hung out for an hour helping us clean up a little. The kids had totally lost interest by then. I was getting annoyed, but then I realized I couldn't really blame them. After all, I'd totally lost interest and it was my stuff being moved!

Primarily we had to get our patio furniture. There was also a small table and chairs set, some other miscellanius furniture, all of Hubby's tools, and various other boxes and sundries. Seriously, there is nothing like moving to make you realize just how much stuff you own.

I know, I know. We should have sorted it and thrown stuff out before we moved. I swear to you we tried, but until we were loading the truck it all seemed very valuable and necessary to have. Actually, I really think that most of our stuff is stuff we use on a fairly regular basis, expect in a few cases like the bread machine and the second juice machine, so I don't feel too bad about having drug it all up here with us.

Anyway.

Hubby and I were at the house until 11 pm! We had to finish loading the truck, take a ton of garbage up to the curb, vaccum, sweep, and mop. It was exhausting. Samson had been supervising us, but got bored. Baru very happily hid in the bottom of Hubby's closet. I suggested we stay at the house and sleep on the floor, but we couldn't because the truck had to be returned by 11:15 on Monday.

It was insane, but we hit the road. Without the SUV, we put Samson in the moving truck cab with Hubby and Baru in the front seat of the sedan with me. The back seat of the sedan was filled with one of our big mirrors and a big painting. (The trunk of the sedan was also full, not that we would have put one of the dogs in it.) While we were corraling Baru, Samson decided he didn't like it in the truck by himself--and jumped out the driver side window! OMG! Do you realize how high that was?! Hubby didn't even remember the window was open. He said Samson did a faceplant. Samson seemed ok with his only injury being a skinned nose. Still, although he's rather fearless, he balked a little when we tried to put him back in the truck.

The drive up when without incident, thankfully. We called each other every half hour to make sure we stayed awake. Still, we realize it wasn't the safest course of action and I wouldn't recommend it. We ended up arriving home at 3 am.

Of course we woke up the next morning at 8 when the maintence men came by doing lawn work. Buzzzz, bruuummm. bleh, It was just as well as we had to unload and return the truck.

There you have it, 72 hours of hard labor.

It's Not Over
We've spent every day since working on unpacking. That's not true. We flopped on Monday and lounged around a bit. We needed it. It's not like we were very functional after all the hard work and late nights over the weekend. But most of every day this week has been devoted to unpacking and arranging.

We started with the kitchen. You have to have the kitchen sorted out if you are going to cook your own meals. Then I put my foot down and demanded we do the bedroom because I was tired of tripping over boxes and suit cases (Hubby wanted to do the dining room). Then we did the living room. Today we did the dining room, which included sorting out the entry foyer and organizing the stuff in the barn so we could finally get the mattress off the dining room floor.

Yeah, it's just crazy. Aside from the kitchen we haven't really unpacked much yet. Really, you need the furniture in position so you have places to unpack into. No point in putting your clothes in the dresser if you are then going to have to drag it across the room.

Yarn? Yarn?
All this hard work unpacking during the day and working on my freelance projects in the evenings means I haven't gotten a lick of knitting down. Last night was the first night in a week that I was able to touch my needles and I managed a whole four rows. Whoop-di-do. We've just been that busy, working that late into the night, and that tired that I haven't had a chance.

Actually, I should wrap this damn post up so I can knit some tonight!

I also haven't unpacked any yarn. The dining room credenza isn't ready. I told Hubby my idea of storing yarn in the pantry and he scoffed. He thinks we'll be storing enough supplies and such that there won't be room. He's suggested reassessing what we keep in the book shelf in the living room and maybe keeping some yarn there. This shows that he doesn't fully understand the extent of my hoard. He's got an inkling now because he's seen the two huge boxes marked "yarn" and at least one of the plastic storage tubs. Still, I think it will be another week or two before I can actually unpack and properly store my yarn.

Yeah, moving sucks.